the whimsical adventures of an author

My Writing Story Part 2

“Why don’t you go to Buddy and Kay’s tomorrow,” David said. “I mean, you’ll only be gone for two nights, right? Like five milking times?”

I assured him that was correct and then almost danced for joy knowing that my books would finally be moving forward again! (Plus I’d be spending a couple of days with some of my most favorite people ever!)

During those three days (two nights) that I was there, we read the books. Actually, Mom (adopted mom) read all the books out loud. 60,000 words of them. I know that doesn’t sound like much, but it was quite the project. Remember, these are books that I had written and then gone over, and over.

We found some changes. Decided to move a few things around. Found mistakes. We worked, we laughed, we chatted. They said I had done a good job and I could have died happy.

It was also around that time that we decided maybe AiG would publish the book that we had that talked about caving at the same time they released the DVD my adopted dad had just made which was about caving as well. (Pretty cool, because I got to help with the DVD, and it’s actually what inspired the book, although they are totally different from each other.)

That meant though that we had a crazy, crazy, crazy (I could write that thirty more times, but will save you the pain of having to read the word so many times) time schedule to meet. But we met the challenge. Head on. Fighting, working, writing, editing, talking. Ugg! It was the most amazing and stressful and lovely and worrisome and wondering and memory filled time ever! Yep, not trading those days for anything.

We had just finished the first draft of editing Where Dandelions Grow, and my gracious editor agreed to put the rest of the book (final edit) on hold and move on to the creation book. Only, he also had tons of stuff going on at the same time. Like a deadline at his work. So yeah, not good timing on our part. (Inspired some more freak-out sessions.)

Can any of you imagine all the prayer going into this? We knew that it would not work out without God’s help and timing. We knew that we needed to do everything possible, because we are responsible to go through doors, but that if God didn’t open the right doors, it wasn’t going to happen. It sure felt like God was opening doors though, so we didn’t walk, we didn’t sprint, we RAN full force through them. And we prayed. I was actually at the point where I couldn’t write about it. I couldn’t hardly think about it (although I thought of little else) and I couldn’t even think of the right words to pray. I just would pray over and over again that the right thing would happen. That God would open doors if it was His will. That the timing HE wanted would be accomplished. That I would be able to be a light for Him no matter what. That I wouldn’t be too disappointed if this wasn’t His will.

By this time I knew that I would get the book published. It was going to happen. I knew God wanted me to. I just wasn’t sure when or how. If AiG wouldn’t do it, then my adopted parents and I had already decided that we would do it ourselves with self-publishing. But I wanted so badly to have AiG do it. Having them sell one of my books had been a dream I had been feeding for years. I knew that God had the best timing though, and so I would pray that I would have the grace and peace to just rest in that. I also prayed for favor with the right people because if any one of many different people would have said “no” any time throughout the process, then we would have been shut down and turned out to dry. Or whatever the saying is.

But people didn’t say no. In fact, we kept hearing “tell us more”. (As you can see, this isn’t a regular publishing company, but that doesn’t mean that it was any less work or any less exciting getting a book published, it just means it was different.) Most people there (ok, maybe everyone) knows my adopted parents, so they kept talking with different people, pitching the book to them. And pitching it more. And to more people. And pretty much going at it with every angle they could think of.

Oh, and illustrations. We needed them for a kids book, right? So, we started talking with this one dude that we wanted to use. And we were like “Hey, can you be really, really, really fast?” And he was like “Sure, I’ll do my best because I would love to help y’all with this project.” Well, that’s not word-for-word, but you get the idea, right?

So, the book is like a mix of two books, one the MC is telling the story about her family’s traveling on the road, and the other (at the end of each chapter) is part of a story that the MC is writing about her dad’s different adventures, because the MC (who’s 12) wants to be a writer. So, it’s kinda like she’s writing in a notebook, so we wanted to have two different types of drawings: actual drawings and sketches. My adopted dad did the sketches, and then the aforementioned dude (Dave Ham) did the drawings (Three of them in two weeks. The kid rocks. The end.) Plus we have some real pictures of cool cave formations in the book, so altogether it’s pretty cool, if I do say so myself. (Which I can say, because I’m not an artist so I’m not praising myself.) Anywho, stay tuned for the next installment soon!